I found this article at the end of March, when everyone was talking about the Census. Apparently a group called the Southern Legal Resource Center are “concerned with preserving Southern Heritage, from the merely interested, to those under attack by South bashers, to the attorneys fighting to stop these abuses.” Because that makes sense. Anyway, they decided that the South wasn’t being appreciated enough, so they called on self-proclaimed “Confederates” to identify themselves as such on the Census.

Check here for hillbillies!

Rather than selecting the box that says “White” (because you can be damn sure they’re all white), they’re being instructed to check “Other” and write in “Confed Southern Amer.” Why?

Because they’re super fun people?

No. Not for that reason. Because “A significant number of Southerners identifying themselves as Confederate Southern Americans on the Census form could finally spell the beginning of the end for the discrimination that has been running rampant, especially for the last 20 years or so, against all things Confederate, and for that matter against Southern heritage and identity in general.”

Yes. That’s the problem. Discrimination (starting in the 90’s, apparently) against all things Confederate, when all the Confederates were trying to do was defend their right to make black people do everything for them. Poor babies. Discrimination against the Confederate cause is like discrimination against the Nazi cause, except slightly less serious and closer to home.

The lawyer for the group, Kirk David Lyons (here’s his Facebook page), said that he’s heard from a lot of people who “complain of being discriminated against, harassed, humiliated, terminated from employment, their children suspended from school simply because they are proud of their Southern heritage.” Unless the kids wore the flag to school (not that outlandish, actually), I think that’s unlikely. By which I mean entirely invented.

But here’s the worst part. You ready to hear possibly the most offensive quote of the last lots and lots of years?

In this age of honoring diversity, Southern/Confederate people are the last group in America that can be maligned, ridiculed and defamed with impunity. Using the Census to unite the Southern/Confederate community can be a significant first step to our obtaining rights and recognition that all American ethnic groups are entitled to.

You are reading that correctly. That is a fat, white man from Texas, a man who thinks “Confederate” is an ethnic group, a man with open social and professional associations with the Aryan Nation, the White Patriot Party and the Ku Klux Klan, a man who founded his law firm with the explicit purpose of “the ethnic cleansing of Dixie,” saying that he wants the same rights as America’s ethnic groups.

Now Kirk—and everyone who actually pays attention to these people—I mean this in the least respectful way possible: